Ulysses Pope has
been baptized. He believes in prevenient grace and in God's eternal
love and forgiveness. But he can not forgive himself and he goes on a
quest to seek expiation. He screws up his courage and abandons his
beloved wife and their two sons and journeys into the past, across
the northern prairie to the High Divide, the rugged country between
the Yellowstone and Missouri rivers.
The Pope family live
in Sloan's Crossing, Minnesota. Ulysses fought in the Civil War and
was mustered out in 1866. What his wife Gretta does not know is that
he reenlisted in '67 with the Calvary in Indian Territories,
mustering out again in '69. He is obsessed by what happened. Gretta
is a woman of strength and courage who left her native Denmark for
America. As an abandoned woman she is prey to gossip and the power of
the man who owns her home. Son Eli is on the verge of manhood, full
of questions which only his father can answer. He sets off to trail
his father. Younger brother Danny is prey to debilitating headaches
and visions, but won't be left behind. Each faces a physical and
psychological journey that entails danger and doubt, and tests their
courage and love for each other.
Lin's descriptive
language is poetic, and he limns dialogue with a verbal sparseness
that speaks volumes. Each character has depth and clarity. The book
addresses the great American themes of the dying West and the awful
holocaust of Native American policy
The story is a journey quest story with a character nearly Biblical.
The story is a journey quest story with a character nearly Biblical.
Can one atone for
one's sins and live free again, face one's family without shame? Can
one find a new baptism and rebirth and live again?
http://algonquin.com/book/the-high-divide/
The High Divide
by Lin Enger
Algonquin Books
Publication September 23, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61620-375-7
$24.95
